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Oprah’s big family secret is…

Oprah Winfrey says she recently learned she has a half-sister she never knew about.

Screengrab from TMZ.com of Oprah Winfrey's broadcast where she talks to her long-lost half-sister Patricia on Jan. 24, 2011. (TMZ.com screengrab)

Screengrab from TMZ.com of Oprah Winfrey's broadcast where she talks to her long-lost half-sister Patricia on Jan. 24, 2011. (TMZ.com screengrab)

Oprah Winfrey, chairman of the Oprah Winfrey Network, speaks to reporters during the Discovery Communications Television Critics Association winter press tour in Pasadena, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 6, 2011. Oprah says she is going to unveil a "family secret" of her own on Monday's Oprah show. (Chris Pizzello / AP)

Mon., Jan. 24, 2011

Oprah Winfrey says she recently learned she has a half-sister she never knew about.

Winfrey announced on The Oprah Winfrey Show that aired on Monday that a Milwaukee woman named Patricia discovered that the two were half-sisters.

The woman says she had been searching for years for the identity of the mother who gave her up for adoption in 1963. She says she learned in 2007 that Winfrey was her half-sister. On her program, Winfrey says she learned about Patricia last November.

Winfrey says she was 9 years old and living with her father when her mother had the daughter and gave her up for adoption. She says she never even knew her mother was pregnant.

Winfrey says the two met on Thanksgiving Day.

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